When threatening letter arrive at his fashionable London home, prominent Government Minister Sir Paul Berowne calls his old friend Adam Dalgliesh for assistance.

Berowne's own household is a challenge. His exquisite wife makes no secret of her adulterous affair with a fasiionalbe surgeon. His only daughter, deeply involved in left-wing politics, has rejected her Conservatie father. He is even resented by his own, strong-willed mother, whose favored son was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush.

Dalgliesh has barely started on the case when a series of bizarre deaths turn the informal investigation into an urgent assignment. With characteristic determination Scotland Yard'senigmatic star detective purses every possibility, ruthlessly exposing dark secrets and ugly emotions as the case proceeds toward its terrifying and bloddy conclusion.